In my recent cleaning jag, I ran across a complaint I had made to the two Marks (son and son-in-law) that I was having to replace my first computer only three years later – after they had assured me that it would do all I ever needed when I bought it. That was a bunch of years and a number of computers ago.

As if it is not enough that they become obsolete before you can get them out of the store, my current new one has a mind of its own. When it gets tired, it shuts down. Sometimes it reboots, sometimes not. It hasn’t lost anything yet, but I have had to go through the tedious mess of deciding which copy of whatever I had open that I want to save. It is particularly annoying when it decides it’s tired while I am on a roll putting words into the machine.

Then we get to the cell phone which does a lot of things, if I only knew where they were and how to do them, and goes over the data allotment which costs me more money for stuff I’m only vaguely aware of doing.

The urge has arisen to go back to the days of my grandfather when he only had to contend with taking a turn on the party line via his phone on the wall. But then we get to a week like this when a grandson has a tonsillectomy several states away.

I’ve gotten a blow by blow account from my daughter-in-law as it happened, complete with pictures, on that cell phone and now downloaded to the computer. They’ve included his practicing the gas mask with his bear, the new friend he met in the children’s waiting area, and the popsicles and ice cream he had when it was all over.

If I went back to my grandfather’s day, I would have had to wait until somebody dropped a letter in the mail, and there would have been no cute pictures.

So technology and I remain frienemies, with the friend part taking precedence for this week at least.